A Little Help With the Agony
by ArticulateZ
Summary: After going off her meds, Shilo finds the pain unbearable and seeks the help that comes in a little glass vial. Lemon, oneshot.


Shilo had resisted as long as she could.

There were things worth doing in this wide open world, and without Daddy to hold her back, she wanted to experience it all. She knew she'd have to be brave, and careful, and not let anyone push her around. Withstanding the pain had not been part of that equation. Her entire body was racked with it, as if an invisible hand had stripped the flesh from her and was now playing her raw nerves like a harp. Attempting a jaunt outside resulted in having to curl up, crying and shaking, on the foot of the stairs.

Alive. This was no way to live. Was it the medicine, the handfuls of pills and bottles she'd thrown into the trash? Had that been keeping her inured to sensation? Whatever the case, she couldn't take it. She reluctantly went into the streets, peering down alleyways until she found that eccentric drug pusher who'd called her out into the world with a firefly and a song and showed her all about Zydrate.

He looked her over like a butcher appraising the quality of a cut of meat. He was smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand and rainbow hair that rarely saw water. His frame towered over her timid form, and his hand forced her to look up at him. A zaddict gasped theatrically, then cackled at her performance. Shilo gulped, painful with her head at this unnatural angle.

His hand was rough, an odd contrast to his silky voice. "What do you want, kid?"

She broke away, wishing she'd never come. A cough that jolted pain into her bones relieved her of that regret. "I need some." A meaningful glance at his belt, the holsters with vials full of glowing blue juice. Shallow illumination lit the alley, a flickering neon sign high overhead spitting sparks down on them. She saw a poster that had been ripped from the wall and trampled on the ground. Emblazoned with a skull, it read ZYDRATE COMES FROM THE DEAD. Below, ZYDRATE ADDICTS BECOME THE DEAD. Recalling the corpses wrapped in plastic in the graveyard, and the clammy feel of her mother's decayed skin beneath her fingers, she pressed her palms to her ears to block an embarrassing display of tears. Nothing came out. Still, she didn't move her hands. The outside world was overwhelming.

The zaddicts chortled and moved around them, tall shoes slapping about in the puddles. She heard the clink of glass, a whirr. He guided her against the alley wall, then took her wrists and brought them down to her sides.

"Lift your skirt," he said, showing her the loaded gun. The long needle frightened her pulse into racing painfully. She fixed her attention there, on the point. He pinched her shoulder, catching her attention; she slapped his hand away and scowled. "You want this or not?"

"Oh, I do." She looked at him, disturbed by the sudden, wolfish grin. Without even realizing, she'd been cornered. He stood close, and when he sank to his knees before her, like a sinner at an altar, she felt his exhaling breath pass over her bare legs. She shuddered, and her skin broke out in goosebumps. "Can't you inject my neck?" she whimpered, running her finger and thumb over her necklace.

He chuckled. "Isn't this more fun?" He looked over his shoulder at the remaining junkies and told them to scram.

She pressed her back to the wall, anticipation and exotic curiosity compelling her to watch him tenderly pet the Zydrate gun, and then her leg.

"First hit's free!" he informed her cheerfully.

"Um, no, I don't want one hit. I need the whole vial." His expression was incredulous. She struggled to explain. "It's like... I can't even breathe. It _hurts_."

"A whole vial's going to cost you, sweetheart," he said, inviting her to sit beside him. She slumped to the ground. "Dearly. Even with your pretty girl discount."

"I don't have any money," she said quietly.

"We don't have to be traditional. I am always open to..." He paused, put an arm snugly around her, and said carefully, "_alternative_ forms of payment."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I want, Shilo," he leered, closing in. She backed away, but his arm held her fast.

"Wait-"

He laughed, and the danger broke and passed. "I'll settle for a place to say. How's that, kid? Rumor has it you're all alone in that tomblike home." She closed her eyes, alarm and pain quivering in her belly, and focused on the warmth in his fingers, wrapped firmly around her. A stranger in her home. Letting herself be vulnerable. Inviting him in. Could she do that? Was she brave enough? She looked at him. He was looking up at the sky, reading an advert with bemusement on his handsome face.

Dad would have been so angry. He'd have blown a gasket. She grinned and nudged him. "Okay." After all, she could always lock her bedroom door and keep out the big bad wolf. She intended to.

* * *

><p>Of course. Of course, Graverobber had pushed past her and charged up the stairs at full gallop. Tiredly, Shilo clomped up the steps after him, and found the door of her room ajar. Steeling herself for the worst, she went in. The man stood there, hands on his hips. Thankfully, Shilo had thrown out the plastic curtains, the medical equipment, the trays and instruments of medical torture. She'd have hated him to see any of it and feel sorry for her.<p>

"Dibs!" he said.

"No, this is my room. You can sleep down the hall," Shilo said, setting her bag on the ground and undoing her shoes. Without the inches her boots provided as boost, the height difference between them was even more obvious.

"It's big enough for the two of us, kid."

"I guess it is," she acknowledged with a shrug. "I can't make you leave." And, she admitted to herself, she'd always been lonely, in an enormous, empty room with only her mother's pictures for company. Soon as she was old enough, she started making changes in the basic designs, covering pictures of Marni with Mag. Now the whole room was a testament to the dead women absent her whole life. She sighed.

"Cheer up. It'll be like a sleepover."

"Dad never let me-" she started.

"Right, right. That was a dumb thing to say, sorry."

"Whatever. I'm beat. Can I get my shot and go to sleep?" She stretched, wincing as joints cracked and popped. He waved a hand and told her to lie back on the bed, entreating her to relax as much as possible.

She did, and watched with fascination as he stood over her. Her knees dangled over the edge of the blanket at right angles, and then the man stood between her legs. Her heart thudded in her chest as his hand meandered up one thigh, the gun in his other hand. "You sure about this?" he asked, but by his tone, it was clear that he didn't want her to change her mind. Not when his fingers were skillfully pushing at the fabric, and positioning the tip of the needle to just the right spot of skin.

"It can't hurt more than what I'm feeling now," she said in a wavering attempt to reassure her nerves. He rubbed her thigh in slow, steady circles with dizzying pressure.

"I'm not giving it to you all at once. We'll start slow. With the lower setting. Besides, you're a small girl; it'll go a long way," he said. She nodded. "Okay. Count of three." She inhaled, and his eyes briefly flickered to her rising chest, then back to business. "One... two..."

In damn near close to one movement, he pinched her inner thigh as distraction and the gun went off. She felt the sharp pinch, and the needle slid in and out too fast for her to tell. The rush was instantaneous, hitting with the pop. Her back arched, and she gasped- "Ah!" He stepped back and observed his handiwork. Shilo writhed, her hands twisting in the blankets. It wasn't an absence of pain. It wasn't an oblivion. Her feelings hadn't been vacuumed into the electric blue paradise. Everything was amplified, and she blinked through flashes of white until a curious scene played out before her.

Graverobber, pulling Shilo's vinyl-clad body over his in a rainy, empty street. Neon sparks showered them, and he closed his arms around her back, pressing their bodies close. She ground against him and struggled to free her hands, pinned between them. When she finally did, she touched his hair, tugged and kissed and twined. Her mouth went to his throat and laid soft little kisses. It was the best sensation from every sex dream she'd never had, from everything her father or her drugs had denied her as part and parcel of a normal, hormonal teenage existence. In flashes of white and red, she saw the corpses and skeletons gradually piling up around them, and they continued to hold each other, fondling, kissing, feeling.

"Hey." A hand roughly shook her. She startled. A tall figure stood over, hard to make out in the dark.

"Dad?"

"Sure, princess. You can call me Daddy," Graverobber said with a wicked grin. "Could you scoot up... or over? Any direction. You have to share the bed."

Blushing, Shilo disentangled herself from the sheets and crept back against the pillows. She really hoped the subject and nature of her hallucination hadn't been obvious. The side effects dimmed and were gone. Experimentally, she rolled her shoulders, her head from side to side. No pain. All gone. She smiled.

Graverobber took off his coat, hopped on the bed, tossed off one boot, then another. "Was it good for you, kid?" he asked suggestively.

She managed to suppress laughter, but couldn't help smirking. "Thanks." Shilo become aware of a wetness on her thighs. Part curiosity, part mortification, she looked down and saw a strand of red running from the puncture. It had been a lower location on her thigh than she'd seen him use with scalpel sluts. Not that she was going to complain. Not that she was going to ask him to fix that discrepancy. She bit her lip.

"Could you stop taking your clothes off?" she hissed when she saw him begin to take off his shirt. Head buried in fabric, he halted, then pulled it off anyway. She put her hand up, between them, and turned her head away.

"Why? Am I making you nervous?"

"Yes! Please stop." She scrunched her eyes shut. "Stop."

"Look. Pants are staying on. I promise." That failed to draw a response. His weight left the bed. Her eyes stayed shut. A minute later, he tapped her. She peeked. His shirt was back on. "Why is this such a grandiose problem, my dear?"

"I don't get out much." He cocked an eyebrow. "My dad was the only person I talked to, and my TV only has one channel-"

"Shit, you mean the rumors are true? You're _that_ sheltered?"

"Duh," she said sourly.

He smiled, the cat who caught the canary. It annoyed and... excited her. "I won't take advantage. More than I already have, that is. I'll get back on the bed..." He climbed over her, ignoring her squeaking protest, and settled on the opposite side of the pillows. "No funny business. Sound good?"

"I guess."

She laid down, facing the window, and drew the blankets up to her mouth. He shifted, and his body slid under the covers, and she could feel his heat even though they didn't touch. She tried to get comfortable and couldn't. It was impossible to sleep with another person, a stranger, a _man_, right there. Close enough to touch. She huffed and wiggled. She was used to being alone! It was lonely, but...!

"God!" she exclaimed.

"Praying is traditionally done in a kneeling position before the bed," Graverobber droned, having drifted off. "But, as I suspect you weren't giving praise, what the hell are you shouting about?"

"I wasn't," she protested, squirming in the covers until she faced him. His eyes were closed.

"Then would you mind... going to sleep?" He sighed and raised his arms - which, even encapsulated in fabric, were muscular and impressive -, folding his hands behind his head. He opened his eyes. "Or did you want to talk?"

"I don't know. Maybe?" she said.

"... Okay. I'm awake. Let's talk." He yawned. She shifted closer. "What's up?"

Her mind was blank of everything. Everything not having to do with the shape of Graverobber's mouth, his eyes, the hair that fanned out on the pillows and down his back. She tried the next best thing: his product. "How long will the Zydrate last?"

"Morning. The good part's over, I'm afraid. You're getting the pain numbed. Never heard of it causing insomnia before."

"Yeah, could be I'm a special case. Right?" she said.

He was the cause of her insomnia. She'd read about crushes in books and never expected to have one. Okay, so when she was eight, she'd thought for a few weeks that she could marry her dad- but he'd set her straight on that one. _Still_. Shilo wasn't prepared for this.

"Sure."

She leaned on one folded arm, other arm across her stomach. "When you said alternative payments, didn't you mean..." she trailed off, her soft voice fading into the sleepy silence and the dark.

"Come on, I was kidding. Girls force me into those arrangements. Not the other way around." He frowned. "Anyone tries to bullshit you into thinking you owe him sex, cut him. Or run away, like you're so good at doing."

"Thanks for the advice, even though I didn't ask for it."

"Hey, I do what I can."

"But you are interested. In me," she pressed. "Aren't you?"

He sat up. "What's this about, little girl?"

"Aren't you?" she persisted.

"Of course I am! You're lovely." He leaned and moved a strand of black hair from in front of her eyes, his fingertips ghosting over her cheek. "Saw you in the graveyard, chasing a bug... Not often I get treated to a sight like that."

She smiled. "Oh..." While he was distracted, looking her over, she reached around him, picked up a pillow, and hit him in the face with it.

He went "oof" and shook his head, though the blow hadn't been enough to fell the salesman. "Seriously, kid?" Shilo bit her lip to keep from laughing, and then her stomach sank as he growled, "You _dare_ to..." Oh no, he was mad, he was mad... "...challenge ME?" He ripped a pillow from under her and smacked her. They struggled, hitting each other with cushions until feathers flew. "Enough!" he roared, and he easily batted Shilo's weapon out of her hands. Disarmed, she held her arms over her face as he hit her repeatedly.

"Stop it! Stop!" she squealed, falling on her back and kicking her legs. He crawled over her stomach and tossed the pillow aside. Shilo went very quiet and still but for her breathing, rapid, almost painful.

"I stopped." In the process of lying over her, he'd dragged her skirt up, something they both now noticed. "May I?"

Thinking he was going to smooth the fabric down over her legs, she nodded. Instead, he lifted his weight off her with the help of one braced arm, and pushed his right hand as far up her legs as he could go, relishing her gasp when his fingertips grazed where her thighs joined. It was a loud gasp, quickly bitten back.

"Like that?" he purred, tracing a circle on the fabric. She closed her eyes. God, only one layer between them. He added pressure, chuckling low in his throat at the growing wetness. He pushed aside her underwear and played with her folds, teasing, testing, before sliding a finger inside her. She squirmed at the foreign sensation and squeezed her thighs closed. Graverobber watched her face intently, his touch doing delicious things inside.

"Ohh," she groaned. She didn't want this to be over. "K-kiss me."

She shuddered in strange relief at the removal of his hand from between her legs. It had felt good, but now what had been a sharp twinge became an ache. He swooped down and caught her mouth in a brutal kiss. His tongue pushed between her lips and she made a soft sound, placed her arms around his neck and grabbed at his hair. She tugged, and he seemed to like that, giving an encouraging moan.

"Say my name," Graverobber said against her collarbone, biting gently.

She choked out a multi-syllabled "God!" and beat at the bed with a flailing hand.

"Not... quite." He ran his tongue up the side of her neck, nipping her earlobe.

"Graverobber," she whined, and that was as close to adequate speech skills as she could get at this point. It was like a hit of Zydrate, the blood rushing and singing in her veins, and the place between her thighs hot and trickling wet. He kissed across her cheek to her gasping mouth. She was sure she wasn't using enough tongue, and at one point she knocked her forehead against his, but he didn't seem to mind. She moaned softly into his mouth.

He broke the kiss. "Kid. Sweetheart," he amended. "Where are we going with this?"

"Why should we go anywhere?" she asked innocently, touching a precise spot on his neck, feeling his pulse race strong and fast.

"You look a little hot. Perhaps if you removed some..." He thought. "... Embellishments. It must be too hot for that wholly unnecessary shirt."

"Okay." She unfastened the clips in back and pulled her arms out of the sleeves, brushing the black cloth aside, leaving her pale, slender torso bare. He put a hand to her breast and squeezed. They were perfect little handfuls.

"Gorgeous."

"Y-your turn," she said. He grinned and undid the buttons two at a time. He was forested with chest hair. She touched it, raked her nails through it. "You're a dog!"

"Hey, we should get you one of those! I know a guy whose bitch recently bred a fine stock of puppies-"

"Shush." She went for his belt buckle, tugging the end of it through the loops until it was easy to unfasten and pull out. His breath hissed out as her touch danced over the bulge in his pants. "What can I expect?"

"Jesus..." She rubbed through his pants. "Stop."

"So tell me." Feeling brave, she hopped off the bed, unzipped her skirt, and let it drop. The dangerous gleam in his eyes made her tremble. She came back to him. "I don't like surprises."

"Okay. Why don't I just show you, hm?"

Shilo nodded. "It's your turn, anyway."

"So it is." He unzipped, unbuttoned, and Shilo helped him pull his trousers down, yanking them off his feet. She sat back on her haunches and held her breath. The boxers came off. Graverobber's gun was long and hard, more long than thick. He stroked himself, and she watched in fascination. His entire body was amazing, strong and powerful. A long-healed scar traced down his side, between his ribs.

"Whoa," she said appreciatively.

"Lie down."

"Gonna give me more medicine?" she asked, doing as he said. He rifled through his pockets, coming up with a wallet. Condom. Tore the gold square open with his teeth. What looked to be loose plastic but probably wasn't went over him, a bubble remaining at the tip.

"In a manner of speaking. Drop your drawers, Miss Wallace."

She complied and shivered, the air cold on her skin. He spread her legs and positioned himself. He guided himself in, only the head at first. The merest intrusion made her whimper and whine, dropping to the lowest moan she'd ever heard escape her throat. It hurt so much as he stretched her, yet she wanted more. Once he was all the way inside her, he bent his head to her shoulder and exhaled hot on her neck.

"Guess I should have mentioned the blood on my fingers earlier," he murmured. He rose up.

"Don't," she begged as he pulled out, tortuously slow, then thrusting back in harshly, deeper. Her nails bit his back in an effort to hold him there, inside her, but he wouldn't stop, hard, deep, merciless. "Graverobber! Please!"

He wetly kissed her breast and his breath ran ragged. She cried out, and the pace quickened. Sparks of incredible, absolute pleasure caught, and she rocked her hips in sync to his thrusts in a desperate effort to catch more of that sensation. Her cries spilled out high and loud, and her back arched.

"Don't," she gasped, but it was no longer a protest. It was a plea, a demand, a helpless response as he manipulated her body. His fingers slipped between them, toying with her. She wailed, went quiet as she spasmed, clenching. His strokes hit harder, his face screwed up as he let himself come. Shilo didn't come down from the high for a while, not when he'd pulled out of her, not when he'd licked the sweat from between her breasts, not later, when he'd wrapped his body around her like a blanket.

"You okay, kid?" he asked, placing a hand on her chest. Her breaths staggered heavily.

"That's never happened to me before," she said in wonder. She felt a mess of contradictions, blissfully energized and completely exhausted.

"An orgasm?"

"Yes." Was that so strange? It was the most intense experience she'd had. Maybe the Zydrate had magnified it further.

He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. "I corrupted you. How poetic."

"Mm," she mumbled in agreement, her eyelids growing heavy. "Talk more in the morning, Graverobber, I'm tired." She curled up and let sleep drag her under into a hazy world of Zydrate-tinted dreams.


End file.
